Superuniti and USB hard drives

As long as it's the right format, I don't know of any reason it shouldn't work

and what is the correct format for the SU? 

Must be FAT32 formatted, look into a tool called 'fat32format gui'. Remember that if you are formatting an exteneral drive to back everything on the drive up first, otherwise you will lose it all.

Get a demo before you buy.  Personally, I'd want a server or NAS using e.g. Asset to serve to the SU over a wired network.  It is where I expect you will arrive eventually.  Maybe I am wrong.

There are pretty big thumb drives available these days, too -- worth considering, if you must go this route.

Good luck.

Nick

Raid is not backup! For backup you need another storage location/device.

A computer or NAS privides the DLNA services a hard drive cannot.  A NAS is a kind of compter/server of a limited sort.  A computer can serve music files, including metadata, from any drive or NAS on your network.  I do not know if a computer on your network can interact with a drive attached to your SU.  What you would get is all the songs on the drive with very limited metadata, if I understand correctly. 

The DLNA server software you run determines how metadata is presented.  Some do a better job than others.

No harm in trying it your way, but the user experience will not be great.

Nick

So very basically:

I'd have a NAS which would show up as a drive on my Mac, I'd have all my music in the NAS drive, and I could drag new music into that NAS drive from my Macs HD. That would all happen wirelessly, correct? Does the NAS plug (by ethernet) into both the SU and the router, or just the router? I guess the cr@ppy talktalk router I have will need to be replaced at some stage too!  

I've ordered my SU, should be picking it up in a week or so 

Congratulations, Nick.  You will have fun!

My Rx for the model home network is:

1.  Router to assign addresses to devices on your network, and provide access to Internet, and, optionally, WiFi.  

2.  Network switch (e.g. Netgear GS105 or GS108) for adding more devices, wired back to router.

3.  WiFi access point wired to switch or router is required if the router has no WiFi, or is in a poor location to provide adequate coverage.

SU and NAS should be wired to the switch; so should the computer, if possible.  WiFi is best reserved for remote controls only.

If you turn on the upnp server on the NAS, you can keep the computer offline, unless you are ripping a CD.

Additionally, only if you want to play e.g. Spotify from your computer, you could add an audio cable from it to the SU.  Depends on the computer, and precisely what you want to do.

It is possible to forgo the switch and do most everything WiFi, maybe plug the NAS into the router -- not what I would do.  

Good luck, whatever you decide to try.

Nick

You can set iTunes to keep its library on the NAS, too.  Upnp can serve songs straight out of the iTunes library.  Easy!

Nick, 

That's brilliant and just the response I was looking for.  I'm going to wait until I pick up the SU and then go down the NAS option when I can afford it.  The SU and speakers which I have bought have really upset my wallet, and therefore it needs to recover! 

Many thanks 

Nick 

I have a self powered  Maxtor 240 GB plugged into my UQ (1) USB port and it works very nicely! To me it sounds much better than all the thumb drives I have tried!

I should mention that I am using the USB cable that came with that drive (probably has no P/S tap)

I use the USB drive with a memory stick on a UQ2 and it works well.  Stable and silent

BUT........you cannot build playlists and the like.  I have been in touch with Steve Hopkins at Naim and his latest note to me ( this week) says:-

I have spoken with R&D and the USB input was only ever seen as a convienieces, quick play input because of how the Streamer works you cannot add Playlists, Que tracks or the like

(That follows the thread I began last week called "Selecting tracks using USB tracks" - mistype!)

Now Naim's position is no convenience at all.  USB is seen by Naim, wrongly in my view, as a poor relation.  That is nonsense; how the music gets to the UQ, whether by streaming, USB, SPDIF should not matter.  The functionality should be the same whatever the input measure.  But we're all hell bent on streaming now aren't we; its the thing

Well it may be for some but its another link in a chain and a direct input from External HD is bound to be less flaky.  NAS drives, RAID, UPnP all have their own deficiencies.  If you have the time, the knowledge and the money to get all this right I'm sure streaming can be great.  If you just want to sit back and enjoy the wonderful Naim sound as simply and easily as possible streaming may or may not be the answer.  USB might be better.  I will be writing to Paul Stephenson to try to get him to get his R&D boys to sharpen their USB act

agreed - you should be able to plug in the drive scroll & pick the tracks you want on the display and hit play - that can't be complicated programming!

Why can't it just work without plugging anything into anything else?  For that matter, don't bore me with 802.11 blah blah blah.  upnp yada yada . . .  whatever.  Wires and wireless, all too complicated and tiresome for me.

Give me a real brass band at home.  Now THAT IS CONVENIENT!

I've had terrible trouble squeezing a whole brass band into my NAS. String quartets are so much easier.

I guess it's a quite straightforward equation: every streamer should be an audio player but, of course, not the other way round !

An audio player is a program that allows at least three operations:

1) browse the audio content of an attached USB drive by folder and play individual files or whole folders.

2) build a database of one or more folders of an attached USB drive and store the result on the drive.

3) read a database from an attached USB drive and browse the indexed data by folder, composer, artist, etc.

NAIM's streamers support only 1) and only via a front USB port. This is fine for occasionally playing from a USB stick but quite inadequate for attaching an external  drive permanently.

From a user's perspective, audio players would be an ideal entry point in terms of SQ, easy of use, maintainability and understandability. And where multi-room playback and data sharing are not needed or wished, audio players would have obvious advantages.

But companies seem not to be interested in selling plain audio players and NAIM makes no exception.

Sorry but you're talking drivel. The limitation is with USB memory sticks, not the Qute. 

Andy

I'm not. I'm asking streamers (not the UQ in particular) to be players. Macs are general purpose computers. They can accomplish far more tasks than audio players or even streamers can do.

And very good streamers, in fact. I have questioned the functionalities os streamers, not of DASs

In a slightly more technical perspective:

- pure DACs require a player

- pure streamers require a DLNA / UPnP server and a DAC

- pure players require a DAC

NAIM sells DACS (DAC and CAC-V1) and streamers + DACs (NDS, NDX and ND5 XS) but no players or player + DACs.

It can't be that complicated to put markers on select tracks and then play them- limit the number to a dozen if you must. N-stream is already capable of browsing the drive and playing from a single track forward!

I agree.  I feel they just don't think it's sexy

Could AndyPat explain why whoever he thinks is talking drivel is doing so and why the limitations are with a memory stick.  Just chucking out opinionated comments is, well, drivel really!